Rooney, Falcons dominate New Fairfield in lacrosse

Chris Brodeur

Updated 12:20 am, Wednesday, April 10, 2013

REDDING -- Barlow High boys lacrosse coach John Distler has grown wary of predictions from Liam Rooney, a senior attacker Distler's coached since sixth grade who, in addition to scoring many goals, has been known to produce his share of bulletin board material.

Rooney's latest forecast was fairly innocent however: On Monday, his mother, Margaret, had a question for him heading into Tuesday's matchup against New Fairfield. He simply answered.

"She asked how many goals I thought I could score," Rooney said. "I said I thought I could get 10."

Mom will have to settle for a career-high six goals, all of them coming in the first half of a resounding 16-3 victory on the Falcons' home field Tuesday.

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Rooney recorded a natural hat trick within the first six minutes and the Falcons turned five early turnovers into a 5-0 advantage that demoralized the Rebels (0-3). Rooney was twice assisted during that stretch by senior Max Cammarota, who tallied four of his five assists in the first quarter to go with a goal. Which begs another question: one year after rolling to the Class S state title with a senior-laden roster, do this year's Falcons (2-0) qualify as a rebuilding project?

"No, they reloaded," said Rebels coach Marty Morgan. "I know they lost a lot of guys, but these guys were just waiting in the wings. ... They're a good program and John's a great coach. Hats off to them, they took it to us today."

Explained Distler, "We're older, but we just don't have the experience. The nice thing is, every outing, we've just gotten better and better, and I'm just hoping that it continues. Offensively I was very happy with the production today."

New Fairfield's Liam Moriarty scored the first of his two goals in the waning seconds of the first half, but at that point the deficit was 13-2.

Luke Maroun added two goals and four assists, and Josh Tunick and Finn Cohane tallied two goals apiece to round out the scoring attack for the Falcons, who are trying to make amends for their stunning 8-6 loss to Weston in last year's SWC championship game.

"We definitely want to win SWCs this year, that's a goal," Rooney said. "And then make a run in states, see what happens."